Was This A Job At A Red Flag Factory?

When I first went job searching, I knew very little about what to look for in an offer. My mother offered little help during the process of applying — our vastly different tastes in jobs led to both of us thinking her input wouldn’t be useful — but when I did score an interview, she gave me several points of all-purpose advice.

Among them, she asked me what the offered salary was, which led me to realize that they hadn’t actually included that in the ad. When I mentioned this, my mother advised me to broach the subject at the interview.

Despite my inexperience, red flags went off when I did attempt to bring up salary and the interviewer kept “setting it aside” to talk more about the job itself. When it seemed like the interview was wrapping up, I asked about the salary again, and the interviewer seemed to be annoyed.

Interviewer: “You need to stop bringing that up. This whole time it’s been ‘salary’ this, ‘salary’ that. Why do you care so much about what you get paid?”

Me: *Dumbfounded* “…Because that’s what a job is. I do work for you; you pay me money. That’s the entire point of getting a job. If you’re not going to pay me a good salary, why would I work for you?”

Interviewer: “Look, we’re running late. I have another interview coming up. We’ll call you.”

Me: *To myself as I leave* “I’m not going to answer.”

Once I got back home and shared the experience, my mother agreed that any workplace that refused to give me an answer as to what my salary would be was not a place I should be working. When I went back to browsing job offers, she was a little more willing to offer input for the search.

I never heard back from that first place.